


Darling Heart

by wretcheddyke



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, BIG WHUMP, Bit of Fluff, Blood, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Doctor, Love Confessions, Massive whump, Nudity, Trauma, Vomiting, Yaz POV, cute flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23862478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wretcheddyke/pseuds/wretcheddyke
Summary: yaz and the fam are forced to care for the doctor after a brutal alien attack leaves her on the brink of death
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 24
Kudos: 113





	Darling Heart

“Let me take her, Yaz.” 

The fibres in Yaz’ arm muscles stretch and snap and fizz under the weight of the Doctor’s limp body in her arms. Her head is lolling back in a horrible fashion that tells Yaz her blood pressure is so low she’s dipping in and out of consciousness too much to keep it upright. Ryan and Graham rush beside her, clothes still wet with slime. It’s mixing with the blood, that awful slime, that congeals across Yaz’ shirt as it oozes from the Doctor’s stomach at an alarming rate. They’ve made it to the TARDIS; the blessed TARDIS, with its blue doors and wheezy hums and medical bays. Splotches of sticky red drop on the console room floor. The adrenaline is the only thing keeping Yaz upright as images of the godawful creature flash through her head. Raw pink body glimmering in the light as its whole body engulfed the Doctor’s skull, smothering her airways. She locks her sights on to the first door in front of her. 

_ Don't let me down. Don’t let me down. Don’t let me down.  _

“Get that door!” 

“Yaz?!” Ryan asks again to take her body. Her arms burn and her lower back hyperextends the wrong way.  _ No _ . No time for a changeover. No chance she’s letting Ryan take her. 

“Just get that door!” The anger boils in the words and it’s enough to get Ryan to obey. She gasps and sighs with relief when the door—what was this? a storage compartment? a utility closet?—swings wide to reveal grey laminate floor. It’s an eery room, deathly dreary and absent of any comforts. At the end of it, there’s a hospital issue bed with a black rubber mattress. “Legs.” Yaz has given up on full sentences as she staggers towards it. Her eyes brim with water—tears?—making her coordination falter. 

_ She can’t die. She can’t die.  _ That can’t be how this goes, can’t be how this ends. They’ve only been travelling together for a year or so. All the thing that would be left unsaid bounce around Yaz’ head and all the love burns through her.

“We got her. We got her.” Graham reassures her as he and Ryan help take her weight, grabbing her legs to heave her deadweight onto the bed. The body below her groans in pain as she lands and Yaz is filled with relief at the stirring. 

When Yaz pulls back the full extent of the blood loss shakes her. It seeps from her, red so dark it’s almost black flowing from the apex of her ribs, just below her sternum. Right where a sharp tentacle had stabbed and burrowed inside her, attempting to take control of her body as it had slithered from one deceased humanoid on to her.

Remembering her emergency training, she pushes both palms against the wound, feeling bloody squelches as she does so. “What do we do?!” 

“Yaz,” Ryan nods up to the wall before them where a small line of white text is being projected. 

** SCISSORS ** . 

“What?!” And the word vanishes, sliding away as if someone were changing the film in on old fashioned projector. 

** CLOTHES ** . 

A pair of heavy-duty trauma shears rest on the neatly organised surgical tray. “Get her suspenders.” Yaz snaps at Ryan and he leaps to action. Graham holding her shoulders forward so they can be slid out beneath her. Her hands are slippy and sticky with clotting blood when her fingers slip into the scissors and she cuts a long line from the hem of her t-shirts, through her bra and up to her collar. The red looks so much brighter against pale skin and the hole in her abdomen is only the size of a gunshot wound but it leaks and leaks and leaks nonetheless. 

_ “Yaz?” _ The Doctor breaths so quietly its barely audible as her eyes slide open for a moment; they’re glassy and confused and filled with panic as her clothes are cut open.

“Doctor. You’re on the TARDIS. We’ve got you.” Her spare hand up comes to soothe her face, wiping some slime off her eyelids and mouth but it only seems to replace it with blood and the feeling of the slime reminds her of that horrible creature's body when she’d ripped it off the Doctor’s face.

The text flashes again, sliding in and out of focus. 

** CLEAN ** . 

And then, 

** TOXIC ** . 

“I think it’s the goo.” Graham guesses. “We gotta get it off her if it's toxic.” 

Yaz looks again at the surgical tray. The only interments there are the scissors, a bowl, a sponge and a packet of white gauze bandages. She grabs the gauze and pushes the white squares over the wound, instantly soaking up sticky bloody. She’s partly relieved she doesn’t have to perform trauma surgery, partly alarmed the Doctor might need it but the TARDIS doesn’t trust her to do it. 

“Lift her again.” She says, cutting up her sleeves so the fabric can be pulled out from under her. As soon as they do the Doctor retches and a frightful amount of greenish slime is expelled from her mouth and lands on her bare chest, sliding down her chin. 

“That’s it, get it out, love.” Graham comforts her. 

She groans again as they rest her back down and Yaz has never heard the Doctor make such a pitiful sound before. Never seen her looks so bare and vulnerable. _ It’s not supposed to be like this. _ Yaz instinctively wipes the vile substance from around her mouth again and notices, thankfully, the Doctor appears more present for its expulsion. 

** TROUSERS ** . 

Yaz feels her heart sink and jolt all at once. She doesn’t want this. She was meant to come willingly; to slowly allow Yaz to peel away the layers of robustness that had grown hard and ridged over the centuries of loss and pain. A controlled descent into exposure, into trust. Not thrust into this state of defencelessness without permission. 

Silver blades cut through blue fabric. “Go. Pull from the bottom.” She orders and the two men stride from her head to her ankles, grasping at the trousers to pull them from her body in one sick movement as Yaz tries her best to lift her hips. Her cut up underwear goes with them and Yaz watches as the Doctor’s knees bow together as if to cover herself and she lets out a noise that sounds like a protest. Yaz feels ill when she thinks of what the Doctor is really experiencing. Being stripped of her clothes as well as her power and her autonomy. 

“No one’s looking, Doctor.” She says. But it’s a lie because Yaz is looking and she watches with a sickness in her chest when the divide between bloodied and clean skin melds as red trickles down the valley of her hipbones. The hole in her abdomen is still oozing and Yaz fears there might be some remnants of that creature still inside her. “I need soap and water.” And Graham is grabbing the bowl before she can finish. 

The Doctor’s lungs rattle as she tries to breathe and then she’s choking, shoulders trying their best to come up off the bed and the text of the wall changes again. 

** SUCTION ** . 

The particle vacuum starts humming from the wall. Ryan takes the cue this time and grabs the suction unit tube. 

“Tilt her head back.” And he does as she says, his hands holding slimy hair and tilting her chin up while Yaz takes the tube from him. She checks that it’s working on her palm before pushing it into the Doctor’s throat. The gasps and coughs that erupt from her frail body as the machine sucks globs of green sludge from her airway make Yaz shudder. It’s only a couple of seconds but she’s sure it feels like hours for the Doctor as her brows pinch together in pain and her eyes fill with panic. She keeps coughing long after the tube is removed and then finally takes a deep, satisfying gasp before collapsing back down. 

“Water,” Graham announces as he places the slopping bowl of soapy water down on the tray. Without hesitation, Yaz starts splashing her whole body, using the sponge to gather load after load of water. 

“It’s not enough, I need a hose or something,” Before she can finish her thought the TARDIS is lowering a shower head from the ceiling. It looks more like something one might wash dishes with than people but there's no time for such observations now. Pale flesh starts to peek through as the red runs off her naked body with the water into the floor below, soaking Yaz’ shoes. 

** 23%  **

The text flashes and Yaz can only assume it's the level of decontamination as the number rises the more she sprays the woman beneath her. 

“Do you need help?” Ryan asks as the two men linger beside her, suddenly out of things to do. 

“No.” It’s harsh and abrasive and she isn’t angry at him so she’s not sure why she snaps. She knows she’s wrong to not like them being here. It’s old fashioned, sexist, perverted even of her to assume they’re enjoying any part of this. Still, she loathes the idea of them seeing her like this, let alone touching her. “I.. I need clothes for her. Or a gown. Towels, maybe.” And both of them scurry off, grateful at the excuse to not have to be witness to this. 

The bleeding is already slowing and Yaz peels back the bloody gauze to replace it with clean dry ones before continuing on to wash off the rest of the toxic substance. Her own blood pressure starts to stabilise as she finally allows herself to accept things are going to be ok.

** 64%  **

The rattling in her chest has stopped as Yaz rubs the soapy sponge up and down the Doctor’s bare legs, over her hips, up her sides and then down her arms. She’s so focused on the task she’s not prepared for the Doctor looking up at her when she moves to wash her face and it makes her gasp. There’re tear tracks down the sides of her face from all the coughing but she’s there, alert and aware of her surroundings. Aware of Yaz gently cleaning her. And suddenly she feels a bit embarrassed. 

“Hi.” She feels her own voice cracking and tries to smile when they lock eyes, dipping a cloth into the water and smoothing it across her cheek and over her mouth. “You scared me.” 

The Doctor takes a little wheezy breath as she opens her mouth to talk. 

“Don’t try to talk. Plenty of time for that later.” And she looks relieved like even the idea of talking had left her breathless. Yaz grabs the showerhead again and rinses out the Doctor’s hair with warm water before lathering the blonde strands up in either soap or shampoo, she couldn’t tell you which. The Doctor’s breathing starts to even out as Yaz massages into her scalp and her eyes blink long and heavy blinks.  _ She must be exhausted _ , Yaz thinks. 

** 100%  **

The Doctor’s muscles contract slightly and her eyes open again when the door swings open and Ryan comes in with a pile of towels and clothes in his arms. 

“How is she?” He asks, walking up to her side but Yaz is more forward this time, guarding her body against his line of sight. Not that he’s even looking. 

“Clear. Stable. You don’t need to be here, I can get her dressed.” 

“You sure?” He checks in but they both know there’s no use pushing, practicality be damned, and with a curt nod he is dismissed. 

She drys the skin around the wound with a towel and then covers it with a plaster the size of a postcard. She looks relatively normal now the blood and grime have been washed away. Apart from a paleness to the skin that doesn’t belong, that blasted bandage over her middle and the fact that she’s wet and naked, she looks quite like herself. 

Yaz tucks towels around her sides and under her legs, trying to dry her as much as possible without rolling her. “Sorry,” She whispers as she drys between her legs, feeling selfish for blushing when she’s the one faffing about.

The gown slips over her arms—still too weak to be lifted unassisted—and ties around the back of her neck. Weak fingers grab on to Yaz’ hand as she guides the second arm through the armhole and she doesn’t let go, letting their fingers intertwine. She looks up to see the Doctor watching her intently. She lets the thumb of her free hand smooth the little frown between the Doctor’s eyebrows but the act feels too intimate so she looks away.

“What now?” Yaz looks up at the wall and the number slides away to be replaced by a word: 

** REST ** . 

And it fills Yaz with relief. 

** *** **

Yaz looks down at the bloodied clothes she still has on. They’re covered in slime too and if it’s toxic to the Doctor she hates to think that it’ll do to a human. 

She flicks the breaks off on the bed and rolls the Doctor to the other side of the room. The blonde has already slipped into a gentle sleep, breathing slow and steady. Yaz kicks her boots off across the wet floor and strips down to wash under the shower, glancing over her shoulder occasionally to check the Doctor’s not looking—which is ridiculous, considering. She’s quick and efficient, dresses in the sweats and t-shirt Ryan had intended for the Doctor and then uses the towels to soak up the undrained water off the floor. 

A small voice interrupts her tasks when the Doctor stirs, “Yaz?” 

“I’m here.” She says, walking over to the bed and the Doctor smiles an absentminded smile when she sees her. 

“Yasmin Khan.” It’s weak and croaky and it sends a pang of agonizing relief through Yaz’ chest. 

“How do you feel?” 

“Brilliant. Tired. Alive.” She lists and her hand reaches for Yaz’. 

“You look stronger already,” Yaz observes, noting the slight return of colour to her cheeks, as she takes the Doctor’s hand again. 

“Quick healers, us Timelords.” She smiles again and there’s something in her eyes that suggests she wants to say more but it gets stuck in her head and won’t come out of her mouth.

“Can you move?” And the Doctor nods as she gets up on her elbows. Yaz helps her slide her legs off the side of the bed so she can see how sitting up feels. “C’mon, I’ll take you to bed.” 

“Aren’t you getting lucky today.” She jibes and it catches Yaz off guard, sending a blush across her cheeks. The Doctor doesn’t usually joke like that, but she supposes after today boundaries have shifted.

“And without even buying you dinner first.” She retorts and the Doctor grins as Yaz brushes a loose strand of wet hair behind her ear. “Let me tie you up.” She slides her hands around the Doctor’s waist to tie up the back of her gown. 

The Doctor’s eyebrows shoot up, not even having to make a joke to tease her for her choice of words. 

“Shut up.” She scolds and blushes further. “Think Graham and Ryan have seen enough for one day is all.” 

And then it’s the Doctor’s turn to blush but they’re both smiling despite themselves as the Doctor puts her weight on Yaz’ shoulder to try standing. 

“Steady?” 

“Yep.” It’s probably a lie knowing the Doctor so Yaz thinks it best not to dally and they start walking towards the hallway and straight across to the nearest door, hoping the TARDIS is still playing nice. 

She is. The room is small and circular and a freshly made bed resides centre stage.

“You alright?” Yaz asks as they make their way across the bedroom.

“Yeah.” She sighs, beads of sweat on her forehead. “Just a tad low on blood. Should be fine. Just gotta… sit down.” She lets out an exhausted sigh when she sits, her skin is white and clammy again, pupils blown wide as the blood disappears from her optical nerves and she blinks through the temporary blindness. 

“Drink.” Yaz hands her the glass of water conveniently left on the nightstand and she gulps it greedily, letting it dribble down her chin. “Want me to dry your hair?” She asks, crouching at her knees. 

Her hands are shaking with the low blood pressure and it sends ripples through the water in the glass she’s holding. “Yeah.” 

She pulls the blowdryer out from under the bed and turns it on. The noise and the warmth almost immediately send the Doctor back to sleep as she sits on the side of the bed. Blonde hair scatters in every direction and her head hangs heavy in front of her, eyes shut. Yaz doesn’t have a brush so she uses her fingers to tame the wild strands, it's knotty and curly by the time she’s done but dry and clean nonetheless. “There.” 

The Doctor looks at her with so much guilt in makes Yaz stomach churn, “I’m sorry. Thank you. For everything today. I’m sorry I—“

“I love you.” Yaz interrupts. She says it simply and says it clearly. “I’ve loved you from the start.” She doesn’t even feel afraid anymore. No. She feels at peace with it. With the simple truth that she loves the Doctor in an entirely unconditional fashion. 

The Doctor’s pale face looks awestruck and pained and her jaw flaps as the words get stuck on her tongue. 

“C’mon. Lay down, you’ll feel better.” Yaz plucks the glass from her fingers and pulls back the covers. “You want real pyjamas?” And the Doctor nods dumbly. 

She lays out the cotton t-shirt and pyjama shorts on the bed and starts untying the gown.  _ Feet in. Stand up.  _ She slides the shorts up her legs under the gown. She dresses her expertly, professionally.  _ Over your head. Gown off. Right hand. Left. _

“Yaz…” And just as she’s pulling the hem of the Doctor’s fresh shirt down over her injured belly she feels gentle lips push against hers. She’d imagined kissing the Doctor multiple times but never like this, never with her weak, never with her frail. She feels clammy fingers in her hair pulling her closer and she lets her mouth open slightly. The Doctor is needy and grabby even in her current state, her tongue slipping into Yaz mouth eagerly. She gets lost in her, had been lost in her for a very long time, but it’s physical now and her grip on reality slips the more the Doctor’s tongue slides across hers. 

She pulls away when she runs out of oxygen, their foreheads resting against each other. “C’mon, lay down.” 

This time the Doctor listens, sliding bare legs between the sheets. “No,” She stops Yaz from bringing the sheet back up. “Get in.” 

And so she does. Slipping into the space under the covers and flicking off the bedside light as the Doctor—her Doctor—snuggles into the crook of her neck. And as she lies in the dark and reflects on the past twelve hours, she’s certain her past self would call her a liar for suggesting her proximity to the Doctor could swing so wildly in such a short period. To go from almost losing her entirely to finally having her in her arms, safe and sleepy. Tears spill from both eyes in the dark and they tickle as they land in her ears. 

One must have trickled down to land on the Doctor’s forehead because she reaches a hand up to wipe it away without leaving her place at Yaz’ neck. “I love you, too.” She mumbles into sensitive skin and Yaz laughs an ugly, tearful laugh. 

**Author's Note:**

> never written anything like this before i was just in a mardy mood !! don't worry i'll be back to my regular horny programming shortly!


End file.
